


Ripping the Stitches Out

by CantStopImagining



Category: Orange is the New Black
Genre: Angst, F/F, Mental Health Issues, Season/Series 04, well duh because it's me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-14
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2019-01-17 07:17:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12360441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CantStopImagining/pseuds/CantStopImagining
Summary: At least she knows it’s fucked up. That’s progress.The aftermath of season four.





	Ripping the Stitches Out

**Author's Note:**

> Written is part of my October writing exercise. I miss these two. Sorry it's so short.

She doesn’t believe she’s back. Not until she can dig her fingers deep into her clothes, leave half-moons on her skin, stick to her side like glue. If she disappears again, she’ll disappear too, she reasons, clinging. She’s taken this long to come to terms with it all. 

She’s married now. Nicky left, Lorna moved on, because she had to, because that’s what you do to survive. When you’re barely staying afloat, and you feel yourself starting to be pulled under by the tide, you anchor yourself to someone. When that someone disappears and you realise you ain’t got nobody else, you _find_ somebody else.

(It was easier than coming to terms with feelings, with words that spilled from red-stained lips, heavy with tears, and ripping her heart from her chest, falling on deaf ears.)

But Nicky’s real. She smells different, of some different laundry detergent like maybe max get some other brand on bulk purchase, and her eyes are different, more hollow somehow, darker, but she’s real, and Lorna can’t let go, not yet. Maybe tomorrow, but not now, not when she’s only just got her back here.

They’re back to their old games within twenty-four hours. Less. Her name - her old name - drips from Nicky’s mouth, her voice that same gravelly, rough sound that rubs Lorna’s heart raw, sends shivers through her, and when she corrects her, it’s only half-hearted. It’s all a part of the game. This is what they do. Replace Christopher with Vince, speak in riddles and flirtations; it doesn’t mean anything, until it does, but that’s easy enough to ignore, so long as she doesn’t spend too long thinking it over, doesn’t let it suffocate her.

It feels natural, this back and forth between them; comfortable. Like she was never gone.

(Except she was, and the weight of that small band of gold on her finger serves as a permanent reminder, something she once had bragging rights over… but now she’s not so sure).

The excuses - “it’s not cheating if you’re in different zip codes” - feel too familiar, too practiced, like she’s heard them a hundred times before. Maybe she has. They used to work, too. She forces herself to shake her head, to look away, to act like it’s all still a game, just a joke between two friends. Her arguments are as much to convince herself as they are for Nicky, her resolve wearing thin in a way that she knows is obvious.

 _Vince is real, what I feel for him is real_ , Lorna thinks, closing her eyes tight, pressing herself against the cool tiles behind her back, _what I feel for her… it’s different… it ain’t right._

She sits, folded up like origami on the bottom bunk, pushed into a corner, knees to her chin, and she goes through the pile of letters, the scraps of Vinnie she has here, and she clings on to each sentence like a lifeline. The wedding band on her finger, the same one she’s stared at for hours, all heart-eyed and happy teared, is like a medal, but it’s like a bullet hole too. She tries to convince herself that their marriage is real, that it’s good, that she can hold onto this, that Nicky being back means nothing.

And she holds on, she does. Even when she realises what it’s doing to Nicky ( _it ain’t your fault, Lorna, you got your own shit going on_ ), even when she knows that her mind is back to its old games, that she’s desperately scratching around for an excuse, a reason to go back to her. And if Vinnie fucking Franny (Franny, her sister, the only person who ever visits, the only person who still believes in her even after all the crazy shit she’s done) is all her fucked up brain can come up with, then it’ll do, because it’ll lead her back to Nicky. It’ll force the lego bricks of her mind to rearrange into some new kind of crazy, something that justifies the web of feelings and fucked up emotions that she can’t deal with, won’t deal with.

At least she knows it’s fucked up. That’s progress.

(She stares at the little cup of pills she takes every morning, until she feels tears pricking at her eyes because why isn’t she fixed yet? Why don’t these make her whole like they’re supposed to? Why does she still have this void that only one person can fill?)

It’s not like she picks up the phone with the intention of yelling at Vince, of tearing their relationship apart at the seams, but Lorna can see Nicky in her peripheral vision, and before she knows it, she’s digging her claws in, shredding every part of this fine web she’s knitted for herself, this fantasy that she’s clung onto since she was a little girl. She hates it, can feel that sickness creeping through her brain, that voice saying ‘what the fuck are you doing’ but not being able to stop it. This is how it always starts. A fire she can’t control, until it spirals out of her grasp, until everything’s burnt up and gone bad, and she’s left alone again.

But at the same time, even as she’s saying the words, she can’t work out what’s real and what isn’t and it’s slowly making its way through every inch of her brain, this disease she can’t control, hasn’t been able to since she was a little kid. The same cancer that has led her to this place, to Litchfield, where the medicine doesn’t touch it, and people are finally beginning to see her for who she truly is.

(That might have been the worst part, facing the whispers and stares and the taunts of ‘Lorna la Loca’ alone, without Nicky, without anybody who gets it).

Burying her face in the worn, musty fabric of a pillow, Nicky’s fingers working their way through her hair… it feels normal. Inevitable. Like an itch is being scratched. She spends so long crying, gulping air between each sob, she forgets what’s wrong, can’t be sure if its tears of pain or of relief. If she even needs to cry, or if it’s just become another part of this elaborate act.

“It’s gonna be alright, ok, I’m here, I got you,” Nicky breathes into her, and she feels whole again, and it _hurts_ that she’s doing this to herself, like ripping stitches out of a fresh wound, but at the same time, it feels right.

“Don’t leave me,” she whispers.

It isn’t fair. She knows it isn’t. But she just keeps doing it.


End file.
